Seventeen months ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced its Initiative to Reduce Unnecessary Radiation Exposure from Medical Imaging. This initiative stems from a March 2009 report by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, which found that the U.S. population’s total exposure to ionizing radiation had nearly doubled over the past 20 years.Radiation’s potential damage to DNA can increase a person’s lifetime risk of cancer, and in its February 2010 White Paper on the subject, the FDA referenced a study by Berrington de González et al. which estimated that approximately 29,000 future cancers could be related to CT scans performed in the U.S. in 2007 alone.
The FDA initiative advocates the adoption of two principles of radiation protection: appropriate justification of the radiation procedure and optimization of the radiation dose used during each procedure. Thanks to improvements in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), it is possible to obtain high quality images without the use of radiation. Modern technology is also producing better-designed imaging devices that use the minimal amount of radiation necessary to achieve an optimal image sufficient for diagnosis.
At Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, our board-certified radiologists utilize state-of-the-art imaging technology that safeguard our patients and obtain exacting accuracy, and superior imaging quality.
Alternatives to Radiation
Holy Cross Hospital is poised to become the first facility in South Florida to receive the MAGNETOM Skyra 3T MRI scanner from Siemens Medical Solutions. Having just become commercially available in the United States for the first time after receiving FDA clearance in October, the MAGETOM Skyra is the world’s first 70 cm Tim+Dot system offering enhanced patient personalization, user guidance, and exam automation. The Skyra 3T technology is integrated with the unique on-board guidance of Dot to increase diagnostic consistency with the precise accuracy of Tim 4G allowing superb image quality to be achieved with fewer errors and recalls.
Holy Cross Hospital also introduced Florida’s first ONI MSK 1.5 Tesla Extreme® MRI which allows patients to recline in a chair throughout the scan and reduces patient anxiety.
Radiation Delivered with Pinpoint Accuracy
Holy Cross radiation oncologist Dr. Lav Goyal is currently treating patients with the Elekta Synergy® radiation treatment system. The system employs a multi-function linear accelerator that that enables high quality 3D imaging at the same time of treatment. This ability allows for more precisely targeted treatments by reducing the risk of errors in patient set up and internal organ movement between imaging and treatment. Dosage may be varied depending on the level of contrast required.
A First in the State
Holy Cross Hospital was the first medical facility in the state of Florida to introduce the Philips Brilliance iCT 256-slice scanner enabling imaging studies to be acquired with less radiation than other CT scanners. To overcome the over-beaming that does not contribute to image formation during helical scans in conventional CT, the scanner’s Eclipse DoseRight collimator eliminates the dose of radiation at the beginning and end of helical scans.
Holy Cross physicians utilize the scanner to locate clots with unprecedented accuracy and conduct minimally invasive procedures to treat a wide range of clinical problems including stroke, carotid artery disease, brain aneurysms, other vascular disorders and cardiac imaging.
